


Enlightenment

by Lycaenion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, I think it was the show's fault, i don't remember why I wrote this, no actual sex but it is discussed, oddly pleased this ship already exists, trying to make Westeros less sex-negative in itty bitty steps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycaenion/pseuds/Lycaenion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selyse believes, but she still worries. Melisandre will do what she can. <br/>(Short ficlet from 2014 that was sitting on my Google Drive. S5 show canon very much not applicable.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enlightenment

The Seven had never done anything for Selyse Baratheon. Unless, of course, one wished to count the Stranger, who had waited for her in every birthing-bed. The Mother had only conspired with him, and when she looked for wisdom the Crone’s lantern was nothing more than a wych-light in the bogs around the Mander, leaving her cold and alone and afraid. 

But the Lord of Light was love, and courage, and the warmth that flooded through her from the red woman’s slender fingers. It was not Stannis’s name she cried then, nor even Melisandre’s, but “R’hllor! R’hllor!” as her back arched and the pleasure was a white flame before her eyes— 

Selyse knew very little of herself, in that regard. If distress drove her to seek out a maester or septa she spoke of her “womanly parts” in a low, timid voice, and behind a well-locked door. She knew they had other names, names that frequented drunken ballads and Lysene poems, and she was no camp follower nor cornsilk-haired bedslave. She was a lady of Brightwater Keep, the wife of the one true king, and they would not pass her lips. 

Yet she wondered, dazedly, if Melisandre knew, for Melisandre seemed to know everything. Her sure, warm hands and the brush of her red lips were as certain as her voice, gentle but powerful, never wavering. 

As the sweat cooled on her body and the last of her trembling left her, Selyse looked down at herself and felt a sudden panic. Melisandre might have kissed her sagging breasts and her pockmarked stomach, left marks with her nails down Selyse’s flat hips, suckled the loose skin at her neck — but the queen herself could no longer bear the sight. Not when the priestess was reclining there, the firelight playing over her ivory skin, unashamedly and splendidly nude but for the great ruby in the hollow of her throat. 

But as her shaking hand clawed for the blanket, Melisandre stopped it. 

“Why hide yourself away? Your faith makes you beautiful, Selyse. Our bodies give us joy, but they are no more than vessels for R’hllor’s light. They are fleeting, failing; they wither in the cold and the Other turns them against us. But His spark is in you, as it is in me and in all of us, and only that makes us who we truly are.”

There were other things Selyse had vowed never to say, but one of them left her now:

“I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

“My lord husband is Azor Ahai reborn. I believe this with all my heart.”

“Your heart tells you truly. What is there to fear?”

“...I fear that I will be Nissa Nissa.” 

Melisandre’s laugh was low, and it rasped like the crackle of flames. “No, Selyse. Your fate does not cleave so close to the prophecies, and I did not need R’hllor to tell me.”

“But -” 

The red woman’s eyes glittered. “Do you really think you are what Stannis loves most in the world?”


End file.
